Chapter 7: The Intruder
Daxter yawned as they traveled through the jungles of the area. In all of his studies of this world he'd never thought he'd ever come to an untamed area of it and have to survive the creatures that lived here. The beasts were huge in this area and slimy. He then caught sight of what looked like a vine hanging from the tree in front of them and the closer he got to it, the more he realized that this wasn't part of a tree, but something that was very alive. "Dax." Jak whispered in his best friend's ear. Daxter turned and looked at Jak and found that the empowered ottsel's hackles were standing on end.
"What is it Jak?" he asked as he paused in his footsteps towards the tree.
"Let's not go that way." He said as he was practically glaring at the tree. "I'm not feeling good about that way."
"Sure." He shrugged and turned away from the tree and went through a few bushes with Ashelin and company following behind him.
"Ya know," Jinx began as he lit up a cigar. "This place is pretty creepy, but I like it. Kinda has that homey feel to it."
"You can have it." Daxter said as he came to a stop in front of a river. "I'm taller than any of you guys and everything is yelling run away that'a way and don't stop until I tell ya, ya idiot!" Daxter yelled as he looked down at Jinx who was now at his feet since Daxter had stopped walking.
"That's because you're a coward Daxter." Torn grumbled as he looked over the river towards the opposite bank and then looked at Tess, who'd brought out a gps tracker. "Well?" he asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"According to the location that Samos had given us that Gol and Maia may be, we've gotta cross this river bank." She sighed and then looked up at Daxter. "Daxie, sweetie;" Daxter's ears fell back a bit, one almost hitting Jak's head; Daxter knew that voice. Tess wanted something. "We're going to have to use you as a raft in order to get across."
"A raft?" Jak asked.
"We'll climb onto Daxter's head and shoulders and he'll have to walk across the river bank." She explained. "It's too deep for us to wade through; but for him it'll only be waist deep."
Daxter's shoulders slumped a bit at the prospect of getting wet. "Fine, but only because it's the only way across." He looked down at Tess. "And because I know yer just dyin' to climb onto me Tessie poo."
Tess giggled, which caused Jak to roll his eyes at her. "Guilty." She smiled as she put the gps tracker away and climb up to his shoulders, with the rest following her.
Daxter sighed as everybody got into his shoulders and or head, which Jak had suddenly claimed when everybody else began to climb up his body. "Jealous buddy?" he asked Jak who leaned down far enough for their eyes to meet and rolled his eyes at Daxter. Daxter laughed, Jak never was one for conversations. He then put one foot into the water and kinda enjoyed the coolness that came from doing the simplest thing. One foot in front of the other he pressed on and within moments found the water rising to just below his armpits. Keeping his arms up for balance, Daxter began to feel panic to rise and thoughts like what if he tripped or what if something grabbed him and drug him under? Daxter never really liked to swim, that was Jak; so when it came to this river he was absolutely terrified, but saying that in front of everybody would confirm their thoughts on him being a coward. So he pushed down those awful thoughts and waded through the water. Thankfully it wasn't too far of a trek and he found himself collapsed on the riverbank on the other side.
Everybody had jumped off of his shoulders and as Jak slid off of his head, Daxter lifted his face in time to see Jak's worried look. "I'm okay buddy." Daxter said tirelessly. "Just need a bit of a rest."
"That's something we all can agree on." Ashelin said as she began to look over the area they'd come to. It wasn't any different that the other side of the river except for one small thing, an eco vent was on this side.
"Hey!" Tess yelled everybody over to the vent. "It's an old eco vent."
"Didn't Samos say something about there being eco mines and vents throughout this area?" Jinx asked Torn, who nodded.
"There's no symbol on this one though, not like the ones in the training arena." Ashelin stated as she inspected the eco vent. Looking over towards Jak she smiled. "Jak, get over here and see if you can activate it."
"Fine." He grumbled as he walked over to towards the vent leaving Daxter to wring out his clothes and hang his robe on a bush to dry out.
As Jak approached the vent he could sense the eco energy inside. It made his heart race and his blood speed up and that alone made him smirk as he realized which eco type this was. As he stood over the vent it activated and the blue eco crystal blue color burst out of the vent at a high speed and hit his blonde / green body with such a force that it startled Jak for a moment and in a flash the young man was gone from the vent and played splat with a nearby tree.
Everybody's jaw dropped as Jak fell from the tree towards the ground, Daxter was the first to recover and rush over to his best friend. "Ya okay?"
Jak groaned. "Peachy." He slurred as Daxter picked him back up and place him on his feet. "Thanks Dax."
"No problem." He said as he walked back over to where he'd left his robe, only to find it missing. "Hey! Where's my robe?" Everybody turned away from the vent towards him. "It was just here dryin'." He pointed to the bushes he'd left his clothing on.
"Maybe something took it." Jinx muttered.
"WHAT!?" Daxter screamed at the pyromaniac. "What did ya just say?"
"Er…" Jinx took a few steps backwards.
"It's a possibility that we've gotten the attention of the locals now." Torn groaned as walked over to a tree near the riverbank. "What with us traveling through the jungle for hours and then crossing the river and then Jak's stunt."
"Hey, Ashelin asked me to do that!" Jak defended himself as he rubbed his green head of hair.
"Then there's the fact that to those beings we're animals and we're talking to one being that looks like them." Ashelin finished Torn's thought.
"Yeah, there's that." Torn looked at Daxter and then back at the group and sighed. "Lets gather some wood and build a fire and get some sleep." He looked at Daxter. "You're on first watch."
"Why me?" he questioned genuinely.
"Because I. DON'T. LIKE. YOU." Torn growled at the young teen.
Daxter swallowed. "Right. Fair enough." He then climbed up a tree and sat down on one of the big thick branches that overlooked the area while everybody else went about doing what they were ordered to do by Torn and Ashelin. Daxter watched everybody scatter around being ordered by the duo and rolled his eyes at them. He was like ten times their size and he was still scared of Torn and especially scraed of Ashelin. She was the meanest woman in the entire ottsel empire! Crossing his arms over his chest Daxter leaned back and began to lightly snooze.
It was around midnight when Daxter was about to climb down from the tree when he heard something. Sitting up in the tree he saw something lurking through the bushes at his friends. Breaking off a small branch; which surprisingly didn't make as much noise as he feared it would, he threw the branch down at the intruder. A thump followed by a whimper Daxter then jumped down and grabbed the intruder and ended up in a real brawl, which had him being tussled about like a rag doll, or that's how he felt.
The intruder grabbed him by the neck with both hands and began to choke him. Daxter made choking noises and he felt panic rise up like bile from his stomach. However instead of being consumed by fears greasy fingers he threw one leg around his opponent's neck, under his armpit and push with his leg to get the being off. This however didn't work out like he wanted and the two went rolling through the brush and into the campsite.
Daxter gave a cry of pain as his shoulder came in contact with the hot coals from the fire that had been burning hotly earlier that night. His cry of course woke Jak who groggily looked around and spotted Daxter in the middle of a fire with another creature. He jumped up to help his friend. "Torn, Jinx; Daxter's in trouble!" he yelled out as he ran forward towards his friend position.
Both Torn and Jinx woke up along with the two girls and spotted the intruder. All three young men grabbed their eco packs from the bags and began to channel their eco. Torn used the yellow eco to blast the intruder in the back and Jinx jumped onto the intruder and being mindful of Daxter who now had both legs wrapped around the intruder in a leg lock, he pounded the being right in the chest. The combination of both eco blasts made the being scream out in pain.
The fur hood that was on its head suddenly fell off of the beings head and using the last of his strength Daxter grabbed a hot log and shoved it into the being face; which caused a very loud and very feminine scream come from it.
Daxter's eyes widened as he realized that he was fighting a young female elf who was no longer fighting and was crying because of the pain from her burns. Pushing Jinx off of her Daxter, using his body weight to pin the young woman looked down at her. At that moment Tess through something onto the campsite that made the fire come back to life. Daxter felt the air rush out of his lungs as he saw how beautiful this being was.
The young woman had her hand over her cheek to stop the bleeding. Her green eyes stared back into his blues. Her red hair made her green eyes stand out even more, making them seem like they were two emerald jewels. Her red hair was and orangish red color that seemed to touch every side of her face with a gentle whisper. She was a goddess.
It was then he noticed the unshed tears in her eyes. "Jak!" he yelled for his best friend, who climbed up on his shoulder and overlooked the young woman. "Heal her?" he asked him.
"Are you sure?" he asked. "She may try to hurt you again." Daxter gave a nod as he held both of the woman's hands over her chest to stop her from hitting him or doing harm to his friends. Daxter watched the woman's eyes widen as she saw Jak glow a bright green color. Jumping down onto her bare stomach Jak began to channel the green eco into the woman's body and healed her wounds throughout her body. Once Jak was done Daxter watched Tess run up to the young Elf woman and pulled a small device out of her bag.
"It's a translator." She explained to Daxter, who nodded at Tess as she put the device into the Elf's ear. The thing about these translators was that if the you or somebody else tried to pull it out of the ear the device would push itself a bit deeper into the ear canal until it couldn't be taken out. Tess did this on the other ear as well; she then took out her tablet and pressed a few buttons on it. "Okay, it's activated. Hopefully it'll begin translating our language into hers." She smiled. "And since we all already have one in place, I'm hoping her language will translate perfectly."
"So…" Daxter looked back down at the young woman. "I'm going to let you go. Okay?" he asked the woman her eyes were very wide, she gave a nod. "No hitting, biting or throwing people in the fire. Okay?" she nodded again, her eyes still wide.
Daxter slowly untangled himself from her and released her hands. For a moment the woman did nothing, lay where he'd left her and then she sat up. Her red hair billowing about her in the unseen air and Daxter still believed she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and he'd been kinda in love with Tess for years and now he liked this girl and he knew nothing about her.
"I'm Daxter." he pointed at himself, then towards Jak and the others. "These are my friends. Jak, Tess, Jinx, Torn and Ashelin." As he introduced each ottsel they waved at her. The woman still said nothing. "We're looking for some people who look a lot like them." The girls cocked her head before looking away from the ottsels and looking back at Daxter.
She crawled over to where he was sitting and sat down in front of him and pointed at herself. "Amunet." She then grabbed Daxter by the cloth of his shirt and pulled his face towards her and kissed him.
Angie-Eyes: Yes, it's been like forever since I've updated. Internet has been down, kids need taken care of and it's been too cold to write. I hope everybody enjoyed the chapter.